Earlier, some Nuevo Laredoans took to Facebook asking what was happening in the area. An investigation is underway.

This comes a week after the sentencing of Ivàn “El Taliban” Velázquez Caballero, who served as a plaza boss for Nuevo Laredo in 2004 under the Gulf Cartel before moving up the ranks and becoming one of the leaders of the Zetas from 2005 until his arrest by Mexican authorities in 2012.

Velásquez received a 30-year prison sentence last Friday in a local federal court for drug-trafficking and money-laundering charges he pleaded guilty to in 2014.

Macabre

The macabre discovery also came a day after a threatening message circulated on social media. An old faction of the Zetas drug trafficking organization, known as La Vieja Guardia, threatened the Cartel del Noreste, or younger generation Zetas.

The message, which continues circulating on social media, states, “People of Nuevo Laredo, tell your children to stop frequenting the night clubs. All of the sudden, we will throw out grenades and burn down the clubs and everything that finances the Norestitas (CDN members).”

The message also threatens forwarding agencies in the Sister City. It’s unclear if the threats are related to the bodies discovered Thursday. Z-47 and Z-33 signed the warning.

Z-33

Court records filed in the Southern District of Texas identified Z-33 as Eduardo Mendoza-Robles, 50.

A 21-page indictment filed in a local federal court in 2012 lists Mendoza-Robles as one of eight defendants charged with various kidnapping, hostage-taking and firearms charges.

Mendoza-Robles faces a sole count of conspiracy to export arms.

The gun smuggling charges against Mendoza-Robles, who remains a fugitive in Mexico, stem from November 2010, when local law enforcement seized 40 weapons that were allegedly going to be smuggled to the Zetas.

The San Antonio Express-News reported that it’s a case with ties to weapons traffickers who provided the Zetas drug cartel with a gun used in the killing of Jaime Zapata, the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement special agent who was ambushed and killed by the gang in February 2011 in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.

In early 2014, the Treasury Department announced Kingpin Act sanctions against Mendoza-Robles for the arms smuggling case.

Mendoza-Robles is a member of the gang who smuggled “drugs, weapons and cash across the U.S.-Mexico border on behalf” of the cartel, according to the Treasury Department.